Because of Google I/O going full-steam ahead, it's a bit of a Google thing going on here. Google co-founder Sergey Brin had a little chat with the press about the Chromebooks Google announced yesterday, and during that talk, he stated that traditional PC operating systems are "torturing users" with their complexity. While he certainly has a point, I'm not sure I like his solution. Giving Google all my files? Yeah... No.

Thom, your thoughts on this mirror mine exactly. I'm all for easier computing for the masses, but Google is already well known for giving our information away to govenments without a warrant, and of course as you brought up there's the issue of what an incredible treasure trove of info is just waiting to be hacked.

Even beyond the data paranoia, vendor lock in is never a good thing. I'd be much more excited about Chrome OS if the server side tools were open source. This simply isn't a good thing for the tech ecosystem unless we can use this technology without relying completely on one company. What if Google decides they don't feel like keeping the servers going anymore, what would happen then? Probably exactly what happened when Microsoft turned off the lights at Danger.